


pastoral symphony

by ghosthunter



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Animal Transformation, Gen, mythological creature transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 15:32:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10947432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghosthunter/pseuds/ghosthunter
Summary: "He's obviously not a centaur. Everyone would have noticed that."





	pastoral symphony

**Author's Note:**

> I pitched this to someone as "how would you feel about purely self-indulgent fic where Andre gets turned into a faun?"
> 
> Thanks to Megan for beta and for saying "omg what the fuck is this what am i reading i love it" and making me feel better about not having written a single fic in something like 5 years.
> 
> It's for Wade, anyway.

He manages to keep the fact that he now has hooves instead of feet a secret for exactly three hours and twenty six minutes.

In the twenty-seventh minute Andre takes his first step onto the ice (with socks packed into his skates around his _fucking hooves_ ) and stumbles like a three year old hitting the ice for the first time, spinning all the way around in an effort to keep his balance, before falling hard and landing on his ass. So sure, he was planning on keeping this whole hooves thing a secret and it was going totally fine, except it's hard to keep his skates on and apparently it's also hard to skate and now he's sitting on the ice with one bare foot - HOOF - and his skate spinning off to the side.

Fuck.

And sure, it would be fine if maybe no one had noticed that he's totally wiped out, but that's not the case. Why would that ever be the case?

"Um," says Tom, stopping next to him and looking down at his feet - his _hooves_ , he's got fucking hooves, oh god. "What?"

"Don't -" Andre starts, reaching out to grab the loose skate. Tom nudges it closer to him and he crams his hoof back in, untying the lace and trying to tie it tighter, hoping he can keep it on. His hoof ankles - is that what they are? He doesn't know anything about weird animal anatomy - are too skinny for the boot to be that tight. "Don't say anything."

"Okay, but do you have fucking hooves?"

" _Tom_ ," he says, gritting his teeth and pushing himself to his feet (hooves?). "Don't say _anything_."

This time, Tom at least lowers his voice before he speaks. "Okay, but. How?"

"I don't know, and if I did know I wouldn't have done it. Or maybe I would un-do it. I don't know!" Now Andre's the one who's speaking too loudly. People are starting to look. And people means teammates, and he's for sure never going to hear the end of this. Whatever "this" is. "Just don't say anything, I'm going to fix it."

He doesn't know how to fix it, of course is the problem. He also doesn't do a very good job of keeping it a secret because he really _can't fucking skate_.

"Burky, what the fuck," TJ asks him as he slides to a stop on his back on the ice near where TJ is standing with Nick. Nick is frowning. At Andre, specifically. It's approaching the level of a glare and he feels a little bit like he's about to get detention or something. "Did you forget how to skate?"

TJ's joking but it's not far off the mark. Andre didn't forget, he just ... is re-learning. Yeah, he's re-learning it.

"I'm just having a bad day," Andre says. He gets himself to his feet, but it feels like his ankles are going to crack. If he even has ankles.

It's not so bad, really. It's just a learning process. A really embarrassing and a little painful learning process as he progresses from falling on his ass every five minutes to falling on his ass every ten or so. He's pretty sure that Trotz has noticed and he's sure that he's going to get A Talk when practice is over. And at least it's just practice, and not, like a game where he's falling all over the place.

Sitting in Trotz's office is a little bit of a blessing, because it gives him an excuse to not change in the locker room in front of the rest of the team. He just nods a lot as Barry talks, because he doesn't have excuses. Well, he has excuses, but they're embarrassing ones. Like how he's got deer (?) legs instead of people legs now, and that's what's making it so hard to stay on his feet. It took him half an hour to re-learn how to walk when he woke up this way.

Sitting in Trotz's office does not, however, ensure that there are not other teammates waiting for him when he finally does get back to the locker room to change. He hasn't come up with a good way to change and shower without someone seeing other than waiting until everyone's gone, but the way Nicky's sitting in his stall scrolling through his phone certainly looks like that idea is out the window.

Andre flops down into his own stall and exhales, leaning back to let his head thunk against the wall. Nicky doesn't even glance up at him, so maybe he's waiting for something else, and not to unleash hell on Andre for whatever he's done that's managed to get his feed turned into hooves.

His phone chimes, and he rummages in his bag to find it. The text from Tom reads _sorry dude they made me tell you'd tell too if papa looked at you like that_.

He's fucked. Andre is absolutely fucked. So Nick knows, and not only does Nick know, but someone else does too, which means - 

He doesn't actually see Nicky stand up, so much as he hears it because what he actually looks at is Ovi coming out of the showers in his underwear, his towel slung around his shoulders. Andre is pretty sure he doesn't know enough swear words to properly convey how he feels right at that moment.

"Burky!" Ovi says brightly, like absolutely nothing in the world is wrong. "Hear you have ... problem." He gestures vaguely toward Andre's legs, and if the situation were somehow less terrible Andre would be upset by what the gesture would imply to people who _didn't_ know what was happening.

"I'm dealing with it," he says stubbornly. He is absolutely not dealing with it, because he has no idea what to even do with it, other than re-learn how to walk, re-learn how to skate, and maybe invest in a very sturdy razor.

"Sure," Nicky says, and even if he doesn't actually roll his eyes Andre still feels like he can hear it. "You have hooves, you can't skate, and you're dealing with it."

"I am!" Andre says stubbornly.

"Okay," Ovi says. "How you gonna play game when you fall down every five minutes?" This is absolutely a logical and fair question and Andre hates it.

"Practice?" he says hopefully.

"Or," Ovi says. "You let us help and we figure out fix."

Andre sighs. "Okay, fine."

"So let's see," Nick says. Andre waits expectantly, because he thinks Nick is going to explain something. But he's looking at Andre expectantly.

"What?" Andre asks. "See what?"

"He tell you to take off your pants. But not those words," Ovi says. He's grinning. Andre feels his whole face and neck get hot. "You some kind of centaur, we need to see what's happening to see how to fix it."

"He's obviously not a centaur. Everyone would have noticed that," Nicky says. "He's been turned into a faun, at best."

"Neither of those things are real," Andre says.

"You have hooves, I don't think you can exactly say that things aren't real right now," Nick tells him. Ovi makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like laughing and Andre suddenly thinks a lot of very unkind things about him.

"I'm handling it," Andre says petulantly. He knows how childish he sounds.

"Just change your clothes, Andre. You have to shower eventually anyway. Do it, and we'll be here when you come back," Nicky tells him, then walks over to sit back down in his stall. Ovi also turns away, going to dress. Andre sighs, then stands up to shower and change.

He comes back shirtless and barefoot - bare-hooved - in a pair of basketball shorts. His legs are bare, covered in still damp fur.

"Definitely not a centaur?" Ovi asks. He's sitting in the stall next to Nicky, and they're leaned in close together, looking at something on the screen of Nicky's phone.

"I told you," Nicky says, exasperated. "That's a horse. He doesn't have the body for it. It's definitely a faun."

"Does it matter?" Andre asks.

"Well," Ovi says. "If is spell, then you have to know creature to undo spell."

"Spell," Andre says.

"That's what I said," Ovi says. He's taking this with more grace and patience than either Andre or Nicky is.

"How are you so calm about this?" Andre asks. "How do you know about spells? How do you know that's even a thing? That shouldn't even be real!"

"No need to get upset," Ovi says. "I see this in juniors. If it's a spell, you get witch, turn back."

"Just like that," Andre says.

"It sounds like an easy fix, but we have to find a witch," Nicky says, shrugging.

"So what do I do in the meantime?" Andre asks. He grabs a t-shirt from his stall and pulls it on.

"Practice," Ovi says.

"And don't let anyone see you," Nick says.

 

”Anyone” doesn't seem to extend to the rest of the team, even though there's a lot more laughter than Andre would like when it finally comes out what's happened to him. When Trotz finds out, he turns and walks back out of the locker room, and the entire room is silent as they dress for practice. He comes back ten minutes later, his face red.

"You're gonna skate until you can stay on your feet," he says, pointing at Andre. "And the rest of you are going to take turns helping him."

"We work on breaking curse," Ovi tells him, and Trotz nods before stalking out of the room.

”Helping” Andre skate seems to involve pushing or pulling different teammates - it helps him balance, and it gives him an idea of how his new legs work. He manages to go the entire practice without really wiping out, which is great for his tailbone, but he knows he's a distraction. He's got Jojo hanging onto the back of his jersey when Grubi skates over to them.

"I can call my Oma," he says. "She ... might be able to help. Or have suggestions." 

"I would really appreciate it," Andre says, and wobbles, relying on Marcus to keep him from wiping both of them out. "Nicky wasn't able to find anyone, or anyone who knew anyone, so."

"I haven't heard back from my mom yet," Marcus puts in. And sure, nobody's supposed to see Andre with his stupid goat legs (because fauns are apparently goat-men, which Andre researched after Nicky and Ovi professionally diagnosed him), but they're all apparently asking their extended families if anyone knows a witch. Fine, okay, it's not humiliating at all.

He's sulking on his couch with Sportscenter muted in the background when someone comes banging on his door. It's been a week since this started - he's missed one game, and when he hasn't been scratched, he's seen more of the bench than he has the ice. He thinks he's earned the right to sulk without someone banging on his door.

What he really wants to do is ignore it, but it doesn't seem like whoever is there is interested in being ignored. He finally gets up and goes to the door, cloven hooves clacking on the floor as he moves.

It's Tom on the other side, which shouldn't surprise Andre, since they live in the same building. Not that he expects that anyone else would have called or texted first - and not that he actually knows where his phone is, since he's been sulking and ignoring people.

"Dude," Tom says. "You need to fucking respond to your texts."

"Maybe," Andre says, "I don't feel like talking to anyone right now."

"Okay, well, maybe my mom found a cousin who can fix this, so maybe you should let me in."

Andre does, because that's probably the definition of making him an offer he can't refuse. It turns out that Tom's mother has a cousin who dabbles in curses and cursebreaking - which, what? - and knows the basics of what's happened to Andre. And that she might know of a way to fix it, but it's going to take her a little while. And she needs some of his hair.

"Like, from my head," Andre asks. Tom just stares at him, because Andre is currently covered in hair from hip to heel on the part of him that's actually cursed and he's asking about his head.

"No," Tom says. "Do you have scissors?"

 

Tom has to send the hair - fur, it's fur, oh God - in the mail, and even though he overnights it, he doesn't know how long it's going to take before Tom's aunt is able to do anything. In the meantime, he's still playing hockey - but he's still having a hard time staying on his skates. It's better, but it's not ideal, and he's pretty sure if he asks Tom for another update Tom is actually going to stab him.

They're walking out of practice on the 18th day when Tom's phone starts buzzing. He answers it, and it's his mom. He talks to her for a couple of minutes, coming to a stop next to his car. Andre leans against the bumper, waiting, because Tom hasn't unlocked the car yet. They carpool, which means Tom drives them to the rink, because he doesn't allow Andre to drive, even though sometimes he gets distracted and Andre is sure that they're going to die at least twice a week.

"So," Tom says, once he hangs up. "She thinks she found a cure and it's in the mail. Hopefully it gets here in one piece. Soon."

It's already been eighteen days, so why not a few more? Except knowing that there's a possibility that this could be fixed and he could be back to normal in only days - hours! - but it's dependent on the Canadian postal service getting something through United States customs.

He's going to die like this.

It's day 22 before the package comes in the mail. Small, brown, nondescript, he opens it standing with Tom in Nicky's kitchen. Inside the package is a well-cushioned mason jar with a snot green liquid inside and a sheet of yellow paper with a note.

Ovi reaches out and snatches the note while Andre is still staring at the jar in horror.

"Says," Ovi says, "Sorry about Tom's friend, hopefully this will be able to help. Not hard curse to reverse, just takes time to cure. Says to be careful who you upset in the future." He looks up from the note. "You make someone mad, Burky?"

"I didn't think so!" Andre says. He puts the jar down on the counter. He's not sure that he wants to drink this. It looks a little bit like it's going to kill him instead of just make him not have goat legs anymore.

"Okay, well, don't do it anymore," Ovi says. "Also says there might be side effects. Might make you drunk."

"Drunk for real, or just side effects like he's drunk," Tom asks.

"Is there a difference?" Nicky asks.

"Well ... I don't know. Maybe?" Tom frowns, confused. Andre is pretty sure there's not a difference, but he's going to let Tom struggle with that.

"Says could last couple of hours, and Burky need to take twice a day until it's gone. 50Ml." Ovi folds the note back up and hands it to Andre.

"Should I just. Start right now? We already had practice and there's no game, so ..." Andre asks.

"Bottoms up," Tom says, picking up the jar and handing it to Andre.

Twenty minutes later, they're all sitting in the living room and Andre is staring at his hands. "Drunk" was a bit of an understatement, maybe. He can feel everything so much and he's laying on the couch with his head on Ovi's thigh. His fingers are fucking fascinating, and he tells them - his fingers - as much.

Nicky translates it for the rest of them, since Andre only seems to remember about 1/4 of the English he knows.

"I thought it was supposed to make him drunk?" Tom asks. "This is like ... he's talking to his hand, you guys."

"Well, as long as it works?" Nicky says. Andre is now using his fascinating hand to caress Ovi's face. Ovi is taking it in stride, all things considered.

"He's gonna grope you next," Tom says.

"I'll stop him," Ovi says, like he has no problem with his face being caressed by one of his teammates.

"Do you think he's gonna remember this?" Tom asks. Andre lifts his head up, and his pupils are completely blown.

"If he doesn't are you going to remind him?" Nick asks.

"Uh, obviously," Tom says. Andre makes a grabby hand at him then, and Tom leans in to have his own face stroked.

 

By the fifth day, there's significantly less hair on Andre's goat legs. He honestly wishes it had gone the other way around and that he'd gotten his feet back first. He also wishes that he could look Ovi in the eye ever again, but that's not in the cards for him. (It's less embarrassing knowing he's been petting Tom's face. It's not like it's the first time. They've done a lot of shots together since Andre's been on the team.)

On day eight he wakes up with toes. His feet are still a little smaller than what they should be, but they're more normal. He can put on shoes now, even if they don't fit and he has to shove socks down in the toes. Skating is so much easier - it's almost like he's back to normal.

Except for the four or so hours a day he's spending completely stoned out of his mind on some magic potion one of Tom's distant relatives cooked up for him.

It's fine, all things considered, even that small humiliation worth it to have his normal life back. Ovi even skates past him after a drill and thumps him hard on the back. "Glad to have you normal," he yells, skating away

Andre grins and skates hard after him - without falling.


End file.
